Three Little Things
by silver-nightstorm
Summary: She ran over him with her car. Now she's stuck caring for him, unless she wants to explain their situation to the Muggle authorities. She knew he would never let her live that down. Hermione/Draco. WIP. AU.
1. A Sleeping Bag, a Thesaurus, and a

So I'm officially crazy, writing yet _another_ story, but here I go :) Enjoy~!

**Three Little Things**

**By silver-nightstorm**

**Summary:** She ran over him with her car. Now she's stuck caring for him, unless she wants to explain their situation to the Muggle authorities. She knew he would _never_ let her live _that_ down. Hermione/Draco. WIP. AU.

XX

**Chapter 1: A Sleeping Bag, a Thesaurus, and a Losing Lottery Ticket.**

She had been cautiously driving down the road in the middle of the night when she had started to snooze off. It was a very long drive, and she had been alert for the first four hours. But music, sodas, and coffee could only keep her going for so long before she started to nod off. Naturally, she didn't almost run over people in the middle of the road when she was alert. Naturally, something like this needed to happen just when she was about to doze off. Needless to say, she was awake now. Completely.

Hermione Jean Granger jumped out of her car and shoved her wand unceremoniously into her back pocket. She ran around the vehicle to study the prone figure lying in the middle of the dirt road. A man lay curled up in a sleeping bag with his hands clasped tightly around a thick textbook. He was very dirty, with hair of an unidentifiable color in a halo around his head and a scruffy beard worn in the hobo style, but he seemed to be alive.

Key word being _seemed_.

Panicked, Hermione pulled the man up into a sitting position. She leaned him against the side of her car and pried the thick textbook – a Thesaurus – out of his long, pale fingers. His other hand was clenched around a crumpled up card – a lottery ticket, she saw. She tried to pull it out, but to no avail. The man had a deathgrip on his lottery ticket; his _losing _lottery ticket was caught in a deathgrip. _Deathgrip_. No living man would hold something in a _deathgrip_!

Hermione could feel herself beginning to hyperventilate. Leaning back against her car, she took deep calming breaths and began to speak to herself. "Calm down, calm down. The car has a protection and cushioning charm on it so he _couldn't_ have died. He's perfectly fine. He's even smiling a bit. Dead people don't smile. Do they?"

She fingered her wand, and jumped up, ecstatic.

"Are you a witch or not, Granger?" she grinned to herself, pulling her wand out. As quickly as her happiness had come, her happiness disappeared, and she busied herself with running diagnostic tests on the man.

A broken rib. Bruising down his body. Marks around his arms from hands that were gripping much too much. And more. One look at the diagnosis told Hermione that she wasn't to be blamed for the man's misfortune. After making sure he was asleep – or knocked out – Hermione levitated him into her car and drove. Pulling into her driveway, she levitated him up to the guest bedroom and firmly locked the door shut with him inside. She wanted to help him, but she wasn't so foolish as to let an unknown man into her house with no caution.

She flitted down the hallway to the bathroom, and soaked in the tub for a few moments before jumping into pajamas and snuggling into her bed.

Home sweet home.

**XX**

My first attempt at a long Harry Potter story :) Tell me what you think, and whether or not you want to see more! Con crit welcome and very appreciated.


	2. A Flowerpot, an Old Car, and the

I'm going to be doing the 'Five Word' Challenge throughout this entire story, five words per chapter!

The words for this chapter = 'regret', 'apology', 'splotchy', 'dreams', & 'humiliation'

**Three Little Things**

**By silver-nightstorm**

**Summary:** She ran over him with her car. Now she's stuck caring for him, unless she wants to explain their situation to the Muggle authorities. She knew he would _never_ let her live _that_ down. Hermione/Draco. WIP.

XX

**Chapter 2: A Flowerpot, an Old Car, and the Next-Door Neighbor. **

He woke up to the smell of eggs and bacon, jarred out of his twisted dreams by the pungent odor. He hadn't smelled food that good for Merlin knows how long, and just the thought of something that palatable made his stomach growl angrily. He was halfway to the door before he had the presence of mind to panic.

Where the hell had the road gone?

Suddenly feeling as if he was going to be sick, the man collapsed to the floor. He didn't know where he was. He didn't know how he got there. Sure, he was getting more and more forgetful these days, but… how did he misplace a _road_? Roads didn't just… get up a _leave_. He was a bloody _idiot_.

The man slid backwards so he was resting against the side of the bed, his legs stretched out in front of him. He rubbed his chin and grimaced at the bristly hairs that scratched his callused fingers. Pulling his legs close to his body, he let his head fall and groaned.

"Draco Malfoy… What the hell have you gotten yourself into this time?"

Taking a deep breath to steady himself, Draco gasped in shock. He jumped to his feet and ran up to a mirror in the corner of the room, pulling his flannel shirt up to see his skin. It was just as he suspected. The bruises that had covered his body minutes? hours? days? ago were all gone. He gently prodded the bottom left side of his ribcage, expecting the sharp pain that had been assaulting him ever since…

The pain never came.

The small consolation that came with his healed injuries didn't make Draco happy. If anything, it made him even more confused, miserable, and desperate. There was only one way that those injuries could have healed so flawlessly – magic.

And if he was in a magical household, he was worse than dead.

XX

The first thing Hermione had done when she woke up was check to make sure the man was still locked up in her guest room. The door jammed for a few moments, making her regret leaving her wand on the kitchen counter, but after a few heavy pushes, it jumped open and Hermione tumbled into the room. She heaved a giant sigh of relief at finding the man still present and then proceeded to heal him to the best of her ability – after retrieving her wand.

She had made quite a bit of progress when her hand started to shake, and deciding that it was better to take a break than to possibly break another one of his ribs with clumsy wand-work, she walked outside onto her little patio to water her plants (first bamboo, then hydrangeas). Carefully, she dragged the earthenware that her plants lived in to the center of the patio, lining them up carefully as she poured a specific quantity of water into each. The next-door neighbor, a single mother of two, pulled up in a rickety old car, and they two had a nice early morning chat before Hermione returned to watering flowers (petunias, this time). In the middle of drowning the jasmines, she heard the sound of something suspiciously mirror-like shattering.

The watering can fell from her hands as she rushed inside.

XX

Damn. Shit. Bloody freaking hell.

Draco could hear small feet pounding down the hallway towards his room. He had roughly twelve seconds before the door was unceremoniously slammed open and his _savior_ could see the mess he had accidentally made of the mirror.

The door slammed open. Apparently the savior was a faster runner than Draco originally though. He kept his back away from the door, trying to hold off the inevitable. He knew the moment he turned around, it would only be a matter of time before he was recognized. Muggles had that saying, 'better sooner than later', or something along those lines. Draco disagreed. Later was very nice. Later was brilliant. He would delay his fate for as long as possible.

Or, at least, he would have if he hadn't caught a glimpse of eerily familiar bushy brown hair reflected on a shard of mirror by his hand. He spun around quickly, as if burned.

XX

"I expect an apology from you for breaking my mirror," began Hermione as she threw the door open (having sneakily unlocking it with a whispered _alohomora_ milliseconds ago), only to be abruptly silenced by the panicked look on the man's face. "Relax," she said, trying to twist her facial features into an expression that could be construed as 'calm and comforting'. "I won't hurt you, or bite. You were in pretty bad shape last night."

The man didn't reply to Hermione, merely staring at her with haunted gray eyes. Although his face was obscured by his raggedy beard and splotchy with all sorts of dirt and Merlin-know-what, his high cheekbones and aristocratic nose rang a distant warning bell in Hermione's head.

Before she could recall where she had seen his face, or even think on the matter, she found herself unceremoniously shoved into the doorframe as he sprinted out the door and down the hallway.

He darted down the stairs and proceeded to throw the front door open before Hermione came to her senses and raced after him. She ran to the front door just in time to see him trip over a flowerpot of lilies.

XX

Draco cursed again, in his head this time. The flowerpot had shattered when he tripped over it, and he lay on the floor on crushed lilies, dirt, shards of flowerpot, and his fleeing dignity. Draco was thankful Granger hadn't recognized him yet; he wasn't sure he could deal with the humiliation. But he pulled himself up, looking her right in the eyes.

She looked up at him and he cursed as he saw the beginnings of understanding in her face. "Is it…" her voice trailed off, her chocolate eyes wide. She shook her head sternly, stubbornly, her curls tossing back and forth. "It can't be him. It _can't_ be."

She stood up and abruptly walked away. "Other people have eyes like that. Other people have facial features like that. It. Is. Not. Him."

Draco groaned. Of all the bloody witches and wizards in the _world_ to find him, it had to be the damned know-it-all Gryffindor Princess.

**XX**

Chapter 2~! I hope you enjoyed it. Please leave something, cookies or reviews are acceptable.


	3. A Witch's Hat, a Trombone, and a

The words for this chapter = 'rage', 'nightmare', 'laughter', 'gravity', & 'bored'

**Three Little Things**

**By silver-nightstorm**

**Summary:** She ran over him with her car. Now she's stuck caring for him, unless she wants to explain their situation to the Muggle authorities. She knew he would _never_ let her live _that_ down. Hermione/Draco. WIP.

XX

**Chapter 3: A Witch's hat, a Trombone, and a Little Pointy Beard **

Halfway to the door, Hermione gave herself a strong mental shake. She _couldn't_ just leave this man sitting on her porch in a pile of dirt to fend for himself. And he _obviously_ wasn't Draco Malfoy – Draco Malfoy would _kill_ her if he ever saw her, and she was still alive. So he wasn't Malfoy.

Satisfied with her logic, Hermione spun back around and walked back up to the man, trying to fix her expression into one of rage (he _did_ break her flowerpot). She put her hands on her hips and glared at the man currently sitting in her lilies who was definitely _not_ Draco Malfoy. She tried to maintain her frown, but her mouth kept on annoyingly tilting back up into a half-smirk before she completely gave up and burst into hysterical laughter.

The man (not Draco!) looked quite offended from this and scowled up at her from his embarrassing position – Hermione was sure he hadn't noticed the flower that was (somehow) perfectly sitting on top of his head of dirty clearly-not-white-blonde hair. Hermione chose to ignore the look of panic in his gray eyes. Instead, she grabbed his arm and pulled him up so he was standing (he wasn't as tall as Malfoy, _no. _He wasn't. He was… a different height) next to her. He looked like a trapped rabbit; muscles tensed, eyes twitchy, getting ready to run.

Hermione sighed, and smiled at him.

XX

For the past few seconds, Draco had been mentally preparing himself for pain. He knew it was only a matter of a few moments before Granger pulled out her wand and hexed him. Or maybe, she would forego the hex and simply _Kedavra_ him back to the Dark Lord. But this was _Granger_. Stupid, bloody, brilliant, honorable, know-it-all _Granger_ who would never use an Unforgivable, even against him. He would be hexed, painfully. Maybe with bat bogeys. They were _disgusting_.

But she didn't hex him. She laughed, helped him up, smiled at him, and whispered to herself – "He's not Malfoy!" Draco snorted. Someone was in denial.

Hermione seized his left forearm and pulled him back into her house. The front door slammed closed behind them and she spun around to face him, still smiling. He frowned. She doubled the force of her smile. He groaned.

"So," ventured Hermione. "What's your name?"

Draco raised an eyebrow.

"Can you not talk?" asked Hermione, almost hopefully. Draco just shrugged. Hermione grinned even more. "I'll call you Draco then!"

Draco fixed her with a look of astonishment. If she was so in denial about who he was, why the bloody hell would she want to call him Draco?

XX

Hermione felt like hitting herself. There she went, off with her big mouth, doing something so dunderheaded as to decide to name this poor, innocent, _hobo_ after a murderer (because he _wasn't_ Malfoy!). She realized that she was rambling to the newly dubbed Draco-hobo.

"I knew this kid in school, you see? His name was Draco and he was a right git. Not that you're a git, no, I'm not saying that! You just… remind me of him. Appearance-wise, that is… not git-wise! But you're _not_ him… Are you?"

Draco-hobo (not _just_ Draco) didn't respond.

"Well," Hermione stammered, suddenly feeling unsafe, "the bathroom is upstairs to the left. Take a shower and clean up. There is a razor under the sink so you can shave."

She shooed him up the stairs before he had the opportunity to protest, and firmly warded the second floor so he wouldn't be able to get out of the house or sneak up on her, even if he was a wizard (but he wasn't Draco Malfoy, so he wasn't a wizard, so there was _clearly_ nothing to worry about, but one didn't get killed from being too _cautious_ so it couldn't hurt).

XX

Draco stood under the steaming hot flow of water and slammed his head softly into the tiled wall, over and over and over. The shower had done him well – his hair was now back to its normal pale blonde and his skin was bright pink from being mercilessly scrubbed to quasi-cleanliness. Draco was actually very grateful for the wash – he needed it. But now that he was clean, Granger couldn't deny his identity any longer.

He had changed in the past few years. He had always been lean, but living on the road made him almost gaunt. His hair was as long as his father's, and if he had let himself go a bit more, he would have had a beard to rival Dumbl– no. Best to not think about things relating to _him_. But the minute he shaved his beard off, Granger was going to scream bloody murder. He just _knew_ it.

He also knew that if he _didn't_ shave, Granger would (as she was known to do) go into 'Mother Hen' mode, drag him back upstairs, and shave the beard off herself – struggling be damned.

Turning the water off, Draco wrapped a towel around his hips and slipped out of the stall. He hurriedly stepped onto the bathroom mat to avoid dripping water over the linoleum – no need to add 'slob' to his long list of 'Reasons Why Granger Hates Me'. Rummaging under the sink, he found the razor she spoke of inside a witch's hat (why there was a hat under the _sink_, he had no idea, and the fact that the razor was in it confused him even more) and began the long and tedious process of giving himself a proper shave for the first time in months.

XX

Hermione sat on the couch. She got off of the couch. She paced a giant circle around her living room. She sat back down on the couch. She turned on the telly. She turned off the telly. She stood up again and began to pace.

Flopping down on the couch once again in annoyance, Hermione blew a clump of hair out of her face. She stared up at the ceiling and sighed. She was bored. She had (quite literally) run around like a headless chicken and done all of the work in the house she could possibly think of before Draco-hobo came downstairs. She had then sat on her couch and removed the wards, prepared for a confrontation. The problem was that even though she was ready to speak to him, Draco-hobo was still upstairs washing off (presumably because he was so dirty from living in a sleeping bag on the middle of a dirt road).

With a sigh, Hermione dragged herself to the kitchen and sat at the bar. She pulled a piece of parchment to her body – the unfinished letter she had intended to send to Harry. So far, she had only two words –

_Dear Harry, _

And then nothing. She didn't know what to write. She couldn't ask him about his job (it was top secret), she couldn't ask him about Hogwarts (too many sad memories), she couldn't ask him about Ronald (she would probably cry), she couldn't ask him about Ginny (too touchy), she couldn't answer his questions (it would negate all of her previous efforts to ignore them), she couldn't ask him about _anything_. Nor could she tell him about anything. Nothing interesting _happened_ to her anymore. Her life in her quiet home was, well… _quiet_. And she wanted it to stay that way.

XX

Draco looked at his face carefully in the mirror. His long hair was now combed (although it now had an oily consistency that was hauntingly similar to his godfather's hair) and his chin and cheeks were completely smooth for the first time in weeks with the exception of a little pointy beard – a goatee. The gravity of the situation weighed fully on Draco's head; she would _definitely_ recognize him now. She wouldn't be able to logically deny it. And Granger was logical to a fault.

Cautiously picking his way down the stairs, Draco tried to silently head towards the door but was blocked by an invisible wall. Granger's wards. He cursed again and turned to walk into her house. Quietly picking his way down the hallway, Draco observed the pictures hung on the wall – Hermione and Harry laughing, Hermione in front of a Christmas tree, Hermione with her par…

For the second time that day, Draco tripped over something on the floor with a dramatic crash. This time, the culprit wasn't a flower pot – it was a trombone. Draco looked at the item with mild curiosity. What in the name of Merlin's hairy bullocks was a bloody _trombone_ doing in the middle of the hallway? Gingerly pulling himself up, Draco shook his head and marveled at the eccentricity of the Muggleborn witch. Razors stored in hats, trombones just _lying around_. Women.

XX

A loud crashing sound made Hermione jump up from her seat and run into the hallway leaving her letter (_Dear Harry, How are you?_) abandoned on the countertop. She rounded the corner to see the man pulling himself up. His hair, now washed, was no longer matted with dirt, no longer _possibly_ blonde but defiantly, _obviously_, platinum blonde. His beard, gone except for a tiny goatee, no longer obscured his face, no longer hid the mouth that Hermione remembered was constantly twisted into a cruel sneer.

Hermione Granger's worst nightmare had just come true. Draco Malfoy was alive. And he was in her home.

**XX**

Please tell me what you think! Enjoy!


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